


Why Do You Reject Me, Daddy?

by Kittywitch



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Comedy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittywitch/pseuds/Kittywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In order to reunite with the Doctor and Peri, Frobisher poses as their child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Do You Reject Me, Daddy?

    The marketplace on Gamma Nine was crowded to capacity. A thick, milling crowd bustled this way and that, pushing each other out of the way only when strictly necessary. Three travellers were moving through this crowd with as much purpose as they could muster between them. In the point position, the Doctor strode with almost enough grace and intensity to pull off his technicolour coat, but not quite. Directly behind him, Peri skittled and chirped, complaining about the rude way he had addressed the man in the last booth they’d stopped in and the fact he wasn’t listening to her about this. Bringing up the rear, Frobisher waddled for dear life as various people failed to notice there was a waist-height talking bird wedging his way through the crowd. The Doctor wasn’t listening to Peri, Peri wasn’t listening to the Doctor, and _no one_ was listening to Frobisher.  
    “You could have at least thanked him!”  
    “Whyever would I do that?” the Doctor demanded. “He was useless!”  
    “He was _trying_ to help!”  
    “He was trying my patience!”    
    “You two have any idea how fast you walk when you’re riled?” Frobisher demanded. Neither of them seemed to notice he had said anything, and considering the last thing either of the pair had said to him was _“Stay out of it, Frobisher!”_ he supposed he could have gotten a worse response.  
    “Sometimes I don’t think you’ve got patience to try!”  
    “If that were true, I certainly wouldn’t keep you about.”  
    “ _‘Keep me about’?_ ” Peri shrieked. “Like being with you isn’t my decision!”  
    “Not dropping off right back where I found you is mine and I haven’t because for some reason I may never understand, my fondness for you is greater than my sense!”  
    “That doesn’t take much!”  
    “Hold up a minute, guys.”  
    Someone pressed into Frobisher’s side again, nearly knocking him flippers over beak, and he turned his head to shout at them.  
    “Hey! I’m waddling here! Ya mind?!”  Frobisher squawked. He turned back to where he had been going, and found that neither the Doctor nor Peri was in his line of sight.

  
    “Peri?” he called, scanning the crowd. No bare navels at his eye level. Not a good sign.  
    “Guys?!” Frobisher called, turning his beak this way and that. How could he have lost the Doctor? How could anyone miss someone dressed like that?  
    “Doc?!” he shouted, bouncing up on his flippers. Would it be a good idea to shift into something a bit taller to get a look over the crowd? Frobisher didn’t want to shift if he didn’t have to, people might be able to accept a talking penguin wandering though the marketplace, but a talking penguin transforming into a talking giraffe would be pressing his luck. It would be better to just ask someone.  
    “Hey mister, have you seen a colorblind-“ said Frobisher, only to be cut off by a hip to his beak. It seemed the man thought that any voice on level of his belt was quite literally beneath his notice. Frobisher turned his attentions to another passerby.  
    “ ‘Cuse me lady, ya think you could-“ the whifferdil began, but the woman he was addressing shoved past him as if she didn’t hear him.  
    “Who ignores a goddamn penguin?” Frobisher demanded of no one in particular, folding his wings in indignation. He tapped his flipper in annoyance, trying to figure out what to do next, now that he was thoroughly lost and had no way to get offworld even if he wanted to. He didn’t want to leave, they were a little loud and this was pretty much the worst thing they’d done recently; but they were his friends and he liked travelling.  He didn’t even want to threaten leaving, that was much more the Doctor and Peri’s purview. Or method of communication. Or flirting. He wasn’t going to ask.

  
    Frobisher’s reverie was broken by a loud, sharp noise off to his left. There was just enough of the crowd thinned for him to see a small child sitting on the ground, rubbing at his eyes with balled-up fists. The child was sobbing loudly, creating a noise that somehow was able to wordlessly communicate terror, confusion, and exhaustion all at once.  
    Almost instinctively, Frobisher moved forward. He didn’t think of himself as someone who particularly liked children, and he was awfully annoyed about being abandoned in the crowd, but something about seeing a small child crying nearly removed his free will from the equation. The child was crying, so as moral sentient he felt obligated to help.  
    However, before Frobisher reached the child, he was overtaken by an adult humanoid. The man dropped to a knee and put out their hand.  
    “What’s wrong, little one?”  
    “I lost my mummy!” the child sobbed, rubbing huge red marks onto his cheeks. The man patted his shoulder comfortingly.  
    “There there, it will all be alright. Let’s find your mummy, she’ll be terribly worried over you.”  
    Frobisher felt a peculiar mix of frustration and jealousy. Everybody wanted to help a little kid, even Frobisher wanted to help a little kid; but no one would listen to a penguin long enough for him to ask directions. He paused. Perhaps that was the answer. A talking penguin was a little weird, and weird things people tended to pointedly ignore. This usually worked out for him in his line of work, but it was definitely not helping today. Today he’d need help. And to get help, he’d need to look helpless.  
  
    Frobisher willed his body into a transformation. With a sound like snapping elastic, his beak retreated into a small turned-up nose not entirely unlike Peri’s. His feathers spiralled into a mop of unruly brown curls as his body retreated from his feet and turned a sort of pinkish colour.  
He couldn’t quite remember the colour of his friend’s eyes, but he was sure the Doctor had either blue or green. Or greenish blue. Frobisher didn’t exactly spend time staring meaningfully into the Doctor’s eyes. But he was fairly confident he got the shape about right and went with green. He was afraid the chin and cheekbones were too much Peri, so he tossed a mouth designed to be twisted into an impish smirk, much like the Doctor’s, into the mix. Frobisher considered adding a smattering of freckles but decided not to overdo it.  
Blue and green spread across his torso and down his now spindly legs, puffing out ever slightly so that it now appeared that he was wearing a loose tee shirt with the arms torn off and a pair of denim shorts. He wasn’t. They were part of the flesh, as were the tennis shoes his flippers were now swelling into; but he was fairly sure no one would bother to check to see if his clothing was removable. And if they did, he’d be transforming into something with large teeth too fast to worry about his shorts. At the last minute, he added a simple cartoon penguin to the front of his shirt. His friends would need all the help recognising him in this getup as they could get.  
    In a matter of seconds, so quickly a passerby might have seen someone else pass in front of him and reappear as something else entirely, the penguin was replaced with an adorable, impish human child. Frobisher frowned thoughtfully, then dropped to his bottom and started wailing. He attempted to cry but couldn’t quite manage it, so he settled for balling his fists and holding them to his face while he sniffled.

  
    It took more time to transform than for this spectacle to draw the attention of a good Samaritan in the crowd. A dumpy, middle aged woman with several large bags in either hand stopped in the crowd and knelt down to his level.  
    “Oh, there there, dearie. It’s alright,” the woman cooed. Frobisher noted that she was speaking with a midlands accent, probably provided by the Tardis. Which meant she probably wasn’t speaking English at all, the Tardis just thought she was presenting as a sweet old lady. “What’s wrong?”  
Frobisher hiccoughed theatrically, wondering if he was milking his little performance and feeling like a right tit either way. He sniffed, rubbing his nose with his wrist, then rose his hands to his face and bawled.  
     _“I lost my mom and dad!”_ the shapeshifter wailed. Frobisher was a little taken aback by his own voice, the New York accent remained but the child vocal cords said shot it up in pitch so that he now sounded like he should have been screaming headlines on street corners. He was a little disappointed that he didn’t think of that earlier; the Doctor seemed like the sort of person to put a child in suspenders and a cabbie hat and make them get a job.  
It was convincing enough for the woman, however, who cooed and pulled out a handkerchief.  
    “Oh, no! We’ll find them, dearie, don’t you worry. Don’t cry. Have a blow, that’s alright.” She handed him the handkerchief. Frobisher wasn’t quite sure what to do with it, as he wasn’t really crying, but he mopped his face as convincingly as he was able, rubbing a bit of colour into his cheeks, willing his eyes to look red from crying, and blew dramatically into the handkerchief. Maybe if he made it look really gross she wouldn’t be handling it closely enough to notice it was dry. He handed it back and pouted sadly at the woman. Her expression had suddenly gone quite serious and Frobisher’s mind went back to the horrible things you couldn’t help but hear happening to children on crowded planets. She looked sweet and the Tardis thought she sounded like a kindly lady, but seeing as he was an out-of-work detective disguised as a scared little boy it went without saying that looks could be deceiving.  
    “Now. What’s your last name?”  
    “Huh?” Frobisher asked, intelligently.  
    “Your last name? So I know I’m looking for mister and missus so-and-so.  Or do you have different names?” They did, but seeing as he’d gone through the trouble to look like their natural-born child he might as well claim they did. “Tarklu” wouldn’t work, and he didn’t have a name for the Doctor. Smith might work, but by the time that occurred to him, he was already answering.  
    “Brown. ‘m Frobisher Brown.” he sniffled, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. Humaniod noses always felt weird to Frobisher, all soft and rubbery. The woman’s face said, “I’m sorry to hear that.” But her voice said, “And I’m Myrtle Davies. We’ll find your parents straightaway, Frobisher.”  
Myrtle straightened and took Frobisher’s hand.  
    “Right then, Frobisher Brown, let’s find your mummy and daddy. What do they look like?”  
    “Well, mom’s hot, stacked and half-nude.” Came out immediately. Frobisher didn’t need the expression the woman was making to remind him that was not the sort of comment children usually made about their mother. He grinned awkwardly. He was going to need to be a lot cuter to get away with that.  
    “…and your daddy?” the woman asked, looking for all the world like she was trying to erase the last answer from her mind.  
    “Um, dad’s hard to miss. He’s about six feet tall and dresses like-“ Frobisher bit back every comment he’d heard Peri make about the Doctor’s dress sense, he didn’t want a repeat of the last description. “-like he couldn’t pick his favorite pattern and tried to wear them all at once. In really bright colors. Yellow pants, yellow hair.” Myrtle smiled kindly and patted him on the head. Frobisher made a mental note to never pat a child on the head himself. If she tried to ruffle his curls, he might be forced to break character.  
  
  
    “I can’t believe you lost him!”  
    “I lost him? _I_ lost him‽” the Doctor shrieked. Peri braced herself for the last outburst, but after it appeared not to be coming, she relaxed. Then he shrieked again.  
    “ _I lost him‽_ ” he demanded again. “I’ll have you know, Perpugilliam, that you were closer to Frobisher than I was when we separated, and while I do not attempt to deny the part I had in this you certainly will not foist the full blame onto me!”  
    “I could barely keep up with you, and I’ve got much longer legs than he does! It’s not like you stopped to see if I was keeping up with you, much less Frobisher!”  
    “If you insist on bringing your legs into it-”  
    “ _Daddy!_ ” something shrieked. Something small and fast moving hit the Doctor firmly in the legs, making him stumble backwards, and when he looked down he saw a small child gripping him about the knees. He looked down at the boy with a look best described as horror. The curly-haired moppet looked up at him and quickly winked. Over the space of a second, the Doctor considered the voice, the face, and the wink, and his horror turned to dismay.  
    “Frobisher-?” the Doctor asked quietly.  
  
    Myrtle pushed a few more passerby aside with a quick gesture of her bags and walked calmly up to the Doctor and his companions.  
    “I guess that makes you the Browns?” she asked. Peri looked from the child to the woman, making a guess at what was going on but really hoping it was wrong.  
    “Yeah… I’m Peri.” she said nervously. “So I guess this means you found Frobisher?”  
    “I just couldn’t leave the poor tot crying on the ground like he was.” said Myrtle conversationally. “My Tom and Andrew grew up, but the mothering instinct never does leave you, does it Mrs. Brown?” At this last comment, her face went sort of cold. Peri fought the urge to roll her eyes; she’d rather expected to have kids before her parenting style was judged.     
The Doctor decided he really couldn’t explain to the woman what was going on, and finally relented to the charade. He pried Frobisher off his leg, gripping him by the back of his shirt and hoisting him into his arms. The Doctor was quite aware that the shirt was part of Frobisher’s flesh and likely to hurt from being grabbed in this way. Part of him was very sorry that he’d hurt Frobisher, but part of him very much was not. Frobisher tried not to look too surprised by this behaviour, although finding himself tucked in the Doctor’s arms, and finding that the Doctor was nothing short of an expert in holding small children against his hip was a lot more disturbing than the pain.  
     “ _Young man, I am extremely cross with you._ ” the Doctor snarled, trying to keep his tone even.  
    “Well, thank you for helping us find him, Mrs. Davies.” said Peri, hoping she could keep up the smile until the stranger left. “We were really worried about him. We couldn’t find him anywhere.”

     “I understand, dearie.” she nodded. “Oh, and one more thing…”  
    “What is it?” Peri asked nervously.  
    “I understand how hard it is, with your first child… and what with your husband being so much older than you…”  
    “You have no idea.” Peri murmured.  
    “And I understand, it’s really hard to keep your temper all the time even with the ones you love, but it’s not just you around anymore. You’ve got to remember little Frobisher there.”  
    “I know, I can’t believe we let him wander off, he was here one moment—” Peri began.  
     “It’s not just that, dearie. Maybe, and I don’t want to judge, but I did notice you and your hubby there having a bit of a domestic, and maybe you might want to remember the little one does hear everything you say about each other.” the woman smiled apologetically. “You never know what he might repeat. It’s important for children to have a bit of respect for their parents.”  
    “What did he say?” Peri asked with genuine exasperation.  
  
  
    “I tried to keep up with you, but you were walking too fast.” said Frobisher. The Doctor shook his head.  
    “You managed to convince someone you were an innocent child, Frobisher?” the Doctor asked. “How in the Other’s name did you manage that?”  
    “Hey, people see a cute little kid, they expect a cute little kid.”  
    “I’ll tell you how he managed it.” Peri offered, joining the group. Her arms were folded and she looked distinctly annoyed. “Badly. That old lady who helped you just thought your mother ought to know what kind of language you use when you’re away from home. And the way you talk about your parents?”       
The Doctor narrowed his eyes at the creature in his arms.  
    “Perhaps, we ought to continue this discussion ‘at home’?” the Doctor asked icily. Peri reached forward and pinched one of Frobisher’s cheeks. Perhaps harder than she should have.  
    “That’s a good idea.” Peri said, putting on a high and sweet voice to better her sarcasm, “Bish, dear, why don’t we all go home and you can tell ‘mommy and daddy’ all about your little adventure and precisely how ‘stacked’ mommy is.”  
    “ ‘Stacked’?” the Doctor repeated.  
    “Also, apparently Daddy’s probably lost because he won’t ask for directions, she’d be able to find us by following the shouting, and at least one ‘colorful’ word Mrs. Davies wouldn’t describe.”  
    “Don’t you think that this sort of thing might have, ah, ‘rumpled the ruse’?” the Doctor asked dryly.  
    “Nah, she didn’t even think it was weird when I asked for anchovies on my cone.”  
    “You let a strange person buy you ice cream?” Peri demanded, aghast.  
    “Geez, _mom_ , can’t I do anything by myself?”

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to finish writing Plant Life and this happened instead.


End file.
